


Palette

by chiiyo86



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Cluster Feels, Gen, Soulbonds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 01:26:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9693752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiiyo86/pseuds/chiiyo86
Summary: They’re little touches of paint that color the backdrop of his life.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geckoholic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/gifts).



> This takes place in a murky timeline, so no spoilers even for the Christmas episode. It isn't much, but I hope you enjoy this treat!

They seep into his life, like water dripping inside a house with a leaking roof. Once he’s realized that they’re real people rather than drunken hallucinations or the results of a mental breakdown, the process speeds up. Soon enough Wolfgang finds them everywhere, even when he doesn’t actually see them.

He doesn’t let people in, as a general rule; Felix has always been there and he’s the only one Wolfgang trusts, the only one he really needs. So at first, he’s tried to keep them away, to form a protective bubble around himself that would keep them at bay. If they’re all antennas catching each other’s signals, then he should be able to block them, right? But, as he slowly comes to understand, you can’t escape what’s already inside of you.

He rarely seeks them out, but they’re little touches of paint that color the backdrop of his life, sometimes so subtly that he doesn’t notice the oddness right away. In the mornings he often runs out of sugar, because he now takes his coffee just as sweet as Lito does, but hasn’t adapted his shopping habits to match the change.

The sky is gray with opaque clouds, heavy with snow that won’t fall, but he can feel sunrays caressing the skin on his bare arms and he draws strange looks from the little old lady who lives next door when he goes out wearing a t-shirt. The air smells like incense, and he can hear Kala’s laugh bubble in the background. He doesn’t try to pinpoint the location of the sound but let it wash over him, humming songs in Korean as he walks down the street, hands in his pockets, heading toward the supermarket. 

He buys fish for dinner. He doesn’t even know what kind of fish it is; it’s long, heavy, and gray, with round open glassy eyes that give him the creeps. Hell if he knows what to do with it, but if the Internet doesn’t help him then he’ll ask Nomi, since she’s probably who he’s picked up the impulse from. He’s been progressively losing his taste for red meat, but only noticed it when Felix commented on it. Yesterday he’s bought cornmeal to make ugali, and Felix told him, “Who are you, and what have you done with my friend Wolfgang?”

Wolfgang had laughed and hoped it didn’t sound too fake. The weirdest part about all those weird things that keep happening to him is how _normal_ they feel. Part of him thinks he should be scared or worried that he’s losing his sense of self as it gets blurred around the edges, and sometimes he is, but the worry is faint and gets fainter every day. Feeling and hearing and seeing too much is now his daily lot, and sometimes he thinks of how empty, gray, and quiet his world was before and _that_ scares him. The thought that he could go back to that world is frightening. 

When he leaves the store a few snowflakes are flying around, melting on his skin when they touch it. Snow is a foreign sight to Kala and Capheus and their cries of delight echo in his ears. It is an all too familiar one for Riley, and when Wolfgang watches the uniformly gray sky he remembers how beautiful the arcs of green, yellow, purple Northern Lights look. A wave of homesickness overwhelms him and he quickens his pace. He comes back home shivering, his lips blue and his nose red from the cold. 

He goes out at night with Felix and they wander the streets, walking from bar to bar. Felix is chatting incessantly but Wolfgang has never minded it from him. The horn from Capheus’ bus booms out but of course it doesn’t faze Felix, who can’t hear it. Wolfgang sometimes thinks he should tell his friend about his cluster, but he doesn’t know where he would even start explaining it, how he could put into words something that doesn’t always make sense even to him.

They cross paths with two police officers, a young man and an older woman, wearing their navy blue suits with the word ‘Polizei’ spelled in white across their chests. Wolfgang instinctively nods at them as a show of respect and recognition, a cop to a cop. When they’ve walked a little further down the street Felix elbows him and whispers furiously, “What was that just now? Were they friends of yours or what?”

Wolfgang shrugs. “I just felt like being polite. Not a big deal.”

Felix gapes at him for a moment. “Not a—” He shakes his head. “This was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen you do. And you’ve been plenty weird lately, so that’s saying something.”

“I’m not being weird. I’m just being myself.”

 _Myself and Will and Lito and Nomi and Kala and Sun and Capheus and Riley_ , he thinks. But he can’t say it; if Felix thinks he’s been acting weird lately, then he’ll definitely feel Wolfgang has gone crazy. 

“I guess you’re weird, then,” Felix says with drunken logic. 

Footsteps thump behind them but Wolfgang doesn’t turn around to see if they’re being followed. He knows who it is without having to look. They’ve stitched themselves into the fabric of his life and he couldn’t tear himself away even if he wanted to.

“Everyone knows _you’re_ the weird one,” Wolfgang replies childishly, a little drunk himself.

He doesn’t know what language were the words that rolled on his tongue, but he knows that it wasn’t German when Felix looks back at him with round eyes. Then Felix throws his head back and laughs, a loud, joyful sound that wraps itself around Wolfgang like a blanket.

“You, my friend, are _so_ drunk,” he says, bumping a shoulder into Wolfgang. “I’ve never seen you drunk enough to be speaking gibberish.”

Wolfgang joins him in his laughter, feeling light and bouncy. Maybe he’s as drunk as Felix says he is. Maybe Riley has been smoking something. Or maybe this is what being happy feels like, and, somehow, that last thought might be the strangest thing of all.


End file.
